Sam Lee is the editor of Woven, an independent publication covering Asian American culture, food, career, and identity. Sam writes about the experiences of the 24 million Asian Americans whose stories are too often relegated to footnotes in mainstream media. Follow Woven on X @readwoven and Instagram @thewovenmag.
American ramen’s rise is one of the more unlikely food stories of the past two decades. A dish associated with cheap instant noodles and college dorms became, through a combination of Japanese immigration, food media, and shifting American palates, one of the most beloved and discussed cuisines in the country. Understanding why ramen became America’s…
Fine dining in America has been quietly and significantly reshaped by Asian American chefs over the past two decades. The transformation did not happen through a single moment of recognition — though the James Beard Awards, the Michelin Guide, and the World’s 50 Best have all provided those moments — but through the sustained work…
Salary negotiation is difficult for almost everyone. For many Asian Americans, it carries additional cultural weight that makes it feel nearly impossible. The values instilled in many Asian American households — humility, deference to authority, gratitude for opportunity — run directly counter to what effective salary negotiation requires. Understanding how to negotiate your salary as…
Somewhere in the last five years, “Wasian” entered the cultural vocabulary. The portmanteau — White and Asian — started as community shorthand, became a TikTok phenomenon, and is now a lens through which American media is being read and reread. The celebrities claimed as Wasian: Olivia Rodrigo, Lana Condor, Keanu Reeves, Awkwafina’s characters, the entire…
Taiwanese American Food New York City: Win Son, Flushing, and Beyond Win Son — Williamsburg, Brooklyn The best Taiwanese American food in New York City — from Win Son’s braised pork rice in Williamsburg to the scallion pancake breakfast sandwich that defined a Brooklyn generation. Win Son Bakery — Williamsburg and East Village Win Son…
The perpetual foreigner stereotype is one of the most persistent forces in Asian American life. Despite generations of American-born Asian Americans — families that have been here for five or six generations — the question “Where are you really from?” remains a fixture of daily life for millions of people. The perpetual foreigner experience tells…
The best Asian American restaurants New York City has right now are not a cuisine category — they are a sensibility. These are chefs who trained in the world’s finest kitchens and then built something that could only have come from a specific combination of inheritance and American upbringing. The result is a dining scene…
Asian American comedians have fundamentally changed the landscape of American comedy. For most of American comedy’s history, Asian Americans appeared in one of two positions: as the punchline or as the invisible. The punchline version was well-established — the accent joke, the small-penis joke, the tiger mom joke, the “ching chong” joke. These weren’t always…
When Beef premiered on Netflix in April 2023, something unusual happened: it received the kind of critical reception that serious television rarely gets: near-universal praise, immediate conversation about its formal ambition, and a quick Emmy sweep that validated what viewers had already decided. It was one of the best television shows of the year, possibly…
The K-drama boom has reshaped global entertainment in ways that weren’t predicted even five years ago. Squid Game changed the conversation, but it didn’t start it. Korean dramas had been finding international audiences for years before Netflix’s global phenomenon arrived — through pirated downloads, through fan-subtitled files shared on forums, through the determined effort of…
Asian American experience films have rarely told the truth — until recently. For most of Hollywood’s history, Asian American films barely existed — or when they did, they reduced complex lives to caricature. For most of Hollywood’s history, Asian Americans were either invisible or caricature. The options were limited: the kung fu master, the silent…
Asian Americans leaving big tech has become a recognizable pattern. The career arc of many Asian American professionals in technology follows a recognizable pattern. Strong academic credentials lead to a position at a large technology company. Years of strong performance lead to senior individual contributor roles. And then, at some point in their 30s or…